Barbara Cleverly - The Last Kashmiri Rose

‘It’s a love letter,’ said Joe. ‘It’s Chedi Khan’s declaration to Prentice when he sent him away to school. “… if aught but death part thee and me…” That’s it. That’s what it was all about. And Prentice saw it as the most beautiful thing in his life. The only thing in his life. Andrew, we can only touch the fringe of this!’

Joe sat back on his heels and Andrew sat on the floor.

‘Well,’ said Andrew, ‘as you say, that says it all.’

‘Not quite all,’ Joe said. He held up the bloodstained exercise book and opened it at the last page. ‘This does say it all though.’

The writing was Prentice’s, cursive and carelessly sloping.

‘ “And the king was much moved, and went up to the chamber over the gate, and wept and as he went thus he said, ‘Oh, Absalom, my son, my son. Would God I had died for thee.’ G.P. 1910” ’

Andrew closed his eyes in exhaustion and pity. He leant back against the charpoy and after a while reached out and took Joe’s hand. ‘Well done!’ he said. ‘You did it.’

‘Did it?’ said Joe bitterly. ‘God! What a mess!’

‘No one could have done more. I can think of no one who could have done as much.’

‘Prentice?’ said Joe. ‘What about Prentice? What can I think of him?’

‘Think this – that he was an evil man, a cruel and a deadly man and he’s gone to his reward. And as for Nancy – my wife! – well, by God, Joe, I’m proud of her! And think of something else – Midge is alive in this bloodstained house and that was where it was all tending.’

‘I didn’t do anything,’ said Joe. ‘Nothing whatever. I just let events unroll. And Prentice’s death – that was no doing of mine. And Midge is alive and that was no doing of mine either.’

‘Rubbish, man,’ said Andrew firmly. ‘You did everything! You got to her just in time. You worked it out. I saw that room – the bonfire. A few more minutes and he’d have applied the match.’

‘But what the hell do we do now? How can we find words to explain all this to Midge?’

‘We can’t leave Prentice here,’ said Andrew with sudden decision, attempting to get to his feet. Joe hauled him up and balanced him. Once he was steady on his feet Andrew took command. ‘Get hold of Naurung. We’ll carry the body back up to the house.’ He added with embarrassment, ‘I’ll make that an order, Joe. Carry him up to the house!’

‘We’re disturbing the evidence,’ said Joe. ‘He should lie where he was killed.’

‘For whose inspection, Joe? Yours and mine. You are the police representative appointed by the Governor to handle this and you are immediately responsible to me. I am the Collector of Panikhat. I am the Law Officer. Do I have to tell the world that the commander of a famous and distinguished cavalry regiment heartlessly killed four women – wives of his fellow officers – over a period, that he attempted to murder his own daughter and that he was shot to death by the Collector’s wife? How does it sound?’

‘Not the world,’ said Joe. ‘No, the world, perhaps, need not know but there is one person at least who must hear the truth.’

Leaving Andrew to watch over the body, Joe made his way back up the track to the bungalow and called Naurung. They set off down the garden together. With difficulty they carried Prentice and laid him on his bed. They looked down on him, on that bitter, vengeful face softened in death.

‘It’s a noble face,’ said Joe consideringly.

‘It’s the face of a devil!’ said Naurung hotly. ‘He deserved to die. Over and over again. Would that I could make him suffer as he made others suffer! God will not forgive him and I, Naurung Singh, will never forgive him! But now I understand what must be done.’

He took a box of matches from his pocket and lit a small lamp, setting it on the table beside Prentice’s head. By its flickering light, it seemed for a moment that, in death, that violent man was smiling.

Naurung turned with surprising authority to Andrew.

‘Now, sahib, I beg – go back to the memsahib and to Missy Sahib and take the Commander with you. Leave me here. I am in charge of the crime scene. I will go and sit on the verandah and wait for the morning. Perhaps I may go to sleep. People are notoriously careless when they are asleep. Especially after what has happened.’

‘Andrew!’ said Joe urgently. ‘Just reflect what you’re doing! The suppression of evidence…’

‘Oh, Joe,’ said Andrew with affection, ‘you’re eternally the Good Centurion! You know I’m right. Naurung – am I right?’

‘Yes, indeed, sahib.’ He turned to Joe. ‘Think of Missy. She will wake to a tragic accident. She will not wake to the bonfire, the bloodstains, the knowledge that her father is many times a murderer. I think for her, I think not for police procedures.’

Kitty’s prophetic remark replayed in his head: ‘There are the living to consider and to me they are more important than the dead. Perhaps even more important than the truth.’ A view so opposed to his own, so at variance with his training and beliefs he could not accept it. What could be more important than the truth? But perhaps he was asking the wrong question. Shouldn’t he be asking who could be more important than the truth? And the answer was clear and immediate. Midge was. Nancy was. Andrew was.

Without further question, Joe offered Andrew his arm and they set off up the dark street together.

‘Getting a bit old for this sort of thing! Long past my bedtime. Shan’t be sorry when we can get back to normal life,’ Andrew murmured between clenched teeth as he laboured on beside Joe. ‘See Bulstrode in the morning. Not now. Give Naurung a chance to tidy up.’

‘Things as they are at the moment, I think even Bulstrode might notice something out of the ordinary had happened!’ said Joe.

They paused at the end of the drive to the Drummond bungalow to give Andrew time to get his breath and both men looked up at the sky. It was the still moment before dawn.

‘Good Lord, we’ll be hearing Reveille soon,’ said Andrew. ‘There’s a lot to arrange. Funeral for a start. I’ll talk to Neddy about it. The Greys are very good at that sort of thing. Have to notify George Jardine, I suppose… Press announcement… I take it Midge is his next of kin. This is all up to me as her trustee and Giles’ executor…’

His voice muttered on. Already his official personality was taking over from the desperate participant in the bloody doings of the night. But Joe could not yet fight his way clear. He turned and looked back down towards Curzon Street. A white mist from the river was rising, curling its way through the garden wilderness and reaching out to the bungalow. ‘The Churel,’ thought Joe. ‘She’s come to gather him in. She will have her revenge for those innocent souls. God, I’m tired!’

They stood together for a moment, lost in thought. Finally Andrew said, ‘Come on, only a few more steps! Let’s get off the street. Too embarrassing to be seen out here together, covered in blood and gaping at the moon.’

Saffron sky to the east was announcing dawn as Joe reached the stables. Running a hand over his face, he realised that he was both bloodstained and unshaven and to any passer-by would look disreputable and suspicious. He did the best he could; quickly plunging his head into a stable bucket and taking a towel from a nail nearby, he cleaned himself up and revived himself. He had not misjudged his man. Walking rapidly, William Somersham, punctual to the minute, came in view.

He stopped dead at the sight of Joe.

‘Sandilands!’ he said. ‘You get earlier and earlier! What brings you here? I’m riding out. Won’t you join me?’ And, looking more carefully at Joe and taking in the bloodstains, ‘What’s happened? What’s happened to you?’